And this week I wanted...I bought...I made

Saturday night will be fish night I think - I have so much stuff otherwise in the freezer that the plan is to run it down and try and buy less for a few weeks. So fish will be the treat, possibly something spiced not spiced but steamed aromatic cod. Sunday I think I shall have spiced shoulder of lamb with roasted winter veg like swede and celeriac had the lamb with rosemary and garlic and sweet potatoes and swede with ginger and chilli and it was good. Monday we are out early on for culture at a private view of the Francis Bacon exhibition at the Tate so will have a quick pasta on our return or a spinach omelette topped with gorgonzola. Tuesday it's my birthday - yay! - so the man is taking me out for a most magnificent dinner at Bar Shu. Wednesday is school night but the man is meeting his parents for an early supper so I may well have scrambled eggs eggs were used Monday, the man didn't meet his folks so we had the last of the pork and beans from the freezer - will have to make more. Thursday a stirfry I think instead it was pasta with porcini and sage, and Friday grilled sausage sandwiches with caremalised onions.

Borough was quiet and calm - and cold first thing Saturday. For the first time in I don't know how long I didn't go to the Ginger Pig - am determined to clear a little space in the freezer. Started at Booths - bought potatoes - still there but fine for using next week, swede roasted with sweet potatoes and ginger Sunday, cabbage still there but fine, lettuce to make a bed for the steamed fish Saturday and the rest will be salad with sausages Friday, cucumber salad Friday, basil some for the fish and the rest of what was a big bunch I decided I would turn into basil oil, because I LOVE basil oil. Sunday I went into Sainsburys and bought 2 500ml glass botttles of olive oil, went home, stripped the leaves from the stalks, put them into a pan with the oil, brought it to a simmer, infused it till the oil was cold again, pushed the leaves into the base of the bottles, decanted the oil onto the leaves, screwed the lids on. Then, with greasy fingers I picked up an oily bottle and, like all the best horror scenarios, watched as the bottle slipped from my hands and very very slowly headed downwards and then smashed on the floor, glass, leaves and oil for miles. It took so long to happen I had time to think very clearly it's okay, the lid is on securely. Fat lot of difference that made - it took me an hour to clear up the mess and sugarsnaps lunches for a round £10

Going back past the front of Brindisa the smoked salmon stall was back - yay! a decadent topping for toast after the market - £5 a tub

Then to Furness for some cod steaks steamed Saturday - two thick ones cost £11.20

To Tony's for peppers was thinking roasted salad but they are still in the fridge, parsley for the cod and spinach was buttered and beautiful with the cod - £4

Eggs omelette Monday night from Wild Beef - £1.50

At Neals Yard they had some short dated strawberry yoghurt, when I was a kid I loved strawberry yoghurt but it has become too sweet in the intervening years but I couldn't resist so I bought one and it was just as good as the olden days as well as milk and an english stick thought we'd have bread with dinner Saturday but didn't so I froze it and we'll have it with sausages Friday night - £6.35

Then to Flour Power for more bread toast! and a brownie for my sweetheart - £3

A mere £41.05 - a totally bargain week

I have also bought olive oil, cream cheese, butter, brown sugar and icing sugar. I also bought rice at Wing Yip - £5.60 for 2kgs - I'm sure it was only £4.50 last time I bought some

This time last year we were mostly eating my grandmother's fruit cake and my first groundnut stew.

Pilaff Rice

This is quick, simple and fabulous.

I wanted our dinner Saturday night to be special so I'd dug out my copy of Gordon Ramsay's Secrets for inspiration. It's a great book, with some easy to follow recipes that usually end in a delightful meal. I decided we'd have fish, and was tempted by steamed aromatic cod. He suggested pilaff rice as an accompaniment - and I could see how good that would be.

We had a roasted chicken last week, hot Sunday and then cold in lunches for the week. By Saturday morning all I had left was the carcass. So, with two minutes effort and an hour on the hob while we breakfasted, this was the source of stock to make this rice dish. Gold star to me for frugality resulting from integrated cooking.

And that was as difficult as it got. By cooking this in the oven there is as close to no work involved and almost no chance of anything going wrong. You end up with delicately scented perfectly cooked individual grains of rice.

Pilaff Rice

250g basmati rice

50g ghee or clarified butter

1 small Spanish onion, chopped

2 fresh bay leaves

2 cinnamon sticks

4 cloves

6 cardamom pods, seeds only

Pared zest of ½ an unwaxed lemon

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

600ml chicken or vegetable stock

Preheat the oven to 160C/Gas 4. Tip the rice into a sieve and rinse well under cold running water until it runs clear.

Cut a circle of greaseproof paper slightly larger than the dish you are planning to cook the rice in, and make a small cut in the centre of it to act as a vent. This is called a cartouche - knowing that may one day win you £1million on millionaire.

Melt two thirds of the ghee or clarified butter in a heatproof casserole dish and sauté the onion until soft.

Add the rice, then stir in the bay leaves, cinnamon, cloves and cardamom seeds and cook for 1 minute. Throw in the lemon zest with some seasoning and pour in the stock. Bring to the boil, then cover with the greaseproof. Place in the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes.

Remove from the oven and leave to stand for 5-10 minutes before removing the cartouche. Dot the remaining ghee or clarified butter on top. Fork through to separate and fluff up the rice, removing the whole spices before serving.

It was lovely with the steamed fish and would be equally good with just some dahl or vegetable curries, or alongside tandoori chicken - in fact it is so easy and tastes so good it is a really useful dish to have up your sleeve.

And this week I wanted...I bought...I made

So absolutely don't know! There is a mass of food in the freezer and I must start to use it. So - might do fish Saturday had mussels with chilli and black beans and perhaps roast chicken stuffed with rice and herbs served with boiled pink fir potatoes and leeks that made a lovely salad to go with leftovers for lunches Sunday night. Monday I am delighted that my friend Adrienne and her husband are visiting from Mauritius so we shall have something special - I'm thinking duck and walnut salad followed by beef daube and mashed potatoes had the daube but had cauliflower soup to start and cheese and chocolates to finish but we shall see. Tuesday stirfry and spiced aubergine had a vegetable curry with rice with brussel sprouts and carrots, Wednesday we might finally get the pork and beans from the freezer we did Yay!, Thursday grilled pork chops utterly fabulous egg, bacon and chips. Friday omelette and salad we shall have the stirfry we didn't have Tuesday.

Started at Ginger Pig and bought a chicken and also got some pork fat for free. It's a sizeable piece of sweet creamy fat that I cut into quarters, froze three of them, and finely diced the remaining piece to add richness to my beef daube - £14.25

Booths for sweet potatoes, new potatoes, leeks, a stick of bright green brussel sprouts, a cauliflower, bananas - £7.20

Chocolates from L'Artisan du Chocolat - 2 bags - £4

Mussels from Furness - £5.50

Cheese from Gastronomica - a hunk of truffled pecorino and an oozing slice of gorgonzola - £10 the pair

Coffee from Monmouth - £9

Milk and bread and cream from Neals Yard - £7.40

A hot sausage roll from Ginger Pig - £3 - a bargain!

Bread and brownie from Flour Power - £3

A not unreasonable £63.65

I also bought butter, more cheese, nibbly crackers, a loaf of sourdough from St Johns and some rice.

The only thing I threw away was the last of the vegetable curry - eggshells and coffee grounds and scraps all went to the worms - who are multiplying happily and getting fat on Borough cast offs!

This time last year we were mostly eating hot cabbage salad and before that roast beef!

Cabbage & Coconut

There's a fabulous little chain of restaurants in Bangkok called Cabbages & Condoms which serves amazing food and then hands out condoms instead of mints at the end of the meal. The thinking is that cabbages are a common food in Northeast Thailand, in fact they are a staple part of the diet, they are grown in every village and everybody eats them. If condoms could be as common and used as often, then some of the population and health problems facing Thailand could be overcome. Seems like a great idea to me.

We ate there the night we arrived in Bangkok - I remember being relieved to find the room was coolly airconditioned. We were decidedly jet lagged and as yet unused to the grasping heat having come from London in November. Dinner was good, on the way out we bought some postcards decorated with condoms, then as we walked back to our hotel in the sweaty night air we had to share the pavement with an elephant. Also, presumably, on its way home. It is an indelible memory.

This recipe has nothing to do with Thailand or elephants. Or condoms. But as I typed the title at the top of this post I was suddenly transported to that night in that city of delight.

Last night I made a few Indian dishes with rice for dinner and enjoyed them all but liked this one the best. It is quick and easy and richly scented. I made little kashmiri lamb burgers and dry spiced beans as well. The whole meal worked really well but you could as well have this just with rice or naan and perhaps some crispy fritters. It comes from Charmaine Solomon's The Complete Asian Cookbook.

Spicy Fried Cabbage

half a large cabbage

4 tbspns sunflower oil

1 large onion, finely sliced

2 or 3 fresh red chilies, seeded and finely chopped

2 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped

1 tbspn fresh ginger, grated

1 tspn ground turmeric

1 tspn salt, or to taste

2 tbspns dessicated coconut

Shred the cabbage coarsely. Heat the oil in a large saucepan and fry the onion and chillies until soft. Add garlic and ginger and fry, stirring, until golden. Add turmeric and cabbage, toss the cabbage thoroughly in the spicy oil, then cover and cook over a low heat for 10-15 minutes until the cabbage is just tender.

Sprinkle with salt and mix well, then add coconut and stir to mix thoroughly. If there is any liquid in the bottom of the pan, leave the lid off and stir over a medium heat till all the liquid is absorbed.

Serve as an accompaniment to rice and curries.

It would also be good with some cucumber raita.

Crumbed Cod

I really fancied some fish this week, simply crumbed and fried and possibly served with chips but all home made, partly because our local chippie is not much good. And partly because I made some fresh soft breadcrumbs a few weeks ago with leftover bread and put them into a big glass jar in the pantry. They catch my eye every day, making me want to use them. They are as far from the toxic orange sand that comes in packets from the supermarket as it is possible to be. They are large (relatively) and softly white, like curls of fluff and seemed to promise crispy golden casing of whatever I rolled them in. What joy!

Initially I was thinking of making fish cakes - it is such a long long time since I made any but last week, at Furness, I caught sight of the Whitby cod fillets and settled on them as my crumb center of choice. The fish is line caught and spanking fresh. I decided against chips - or even potato of any ilk - and went for a simpler dish with roasted peppers dressed with basil oil and a little mound of peppery watercress to make a really beautiful plate of food.

Crumbed Cod

for 2

2 fillets of cod, about 180g each

1 egg, lightly beaten

2 tablespoons plain flour seasoned with salt and pepper

1 cup fresh breadcrumbs

Sunflower oil

About half an hour before you plan to eat set out 2 dinner plates and a shallow bowl. Tip the flour onto one plate and season generously. Tip the breadcrumbs onto the other plate. Beat the egg in the bowl and put the bowl between the two plates. Place a clean dinner plate after the plate of crumbs place. You need to do all this in advance as your hands get a ready coating of crumbs and it's just too complicated to try and retrieve something you have forgotten.

You are ready to crumb.

Pick up the first fillet and dredge it in the flour so that both sides are entirely coated in a thin layer of flour. Then dunk the fillet into the beaten egg, making sure there is a film of egg over the whole piece. Then dunk the fish into the crumbs, making sure the whole piece is covered.

Then, and this is the secret that will make your fish supper sublime, (and your fingers messy) dunk the fish into the egg again and then into the crumbs so that you have a lovely even coating. Place the well crumbed fillet onto the empty plate.

Repeat with the other fillet. Cover the fish with clingfilm and put it into the fridge for half an hour or so. This sets the crumb making it less likely to float straight off when the fish goes into the pan.

In a non stick pan heat about 2 tablespoons of oil till very hot. If the temperature is too low the oil will simply soak into the crumbs and be disgusting. When the oil is ready add the fillets and leave to cook, uncovered for 3-4 minutes, depending on the thickness. With a fish slice, flip each one over, so that the golden crumbs are now facing up. Continue to cook for another 3-4 minutes, when the whole fillet should be cased in deep rough golden crumbs.

Have a plate ready with a double layer of kitchen paper or a paper bag. When the fish is cooked remove it with a fish slice and put it briefly onto the paper to remove any excess oil. Then put onto dinner plates and serve with salad or chips and crusty bread.

Making your own breadcrumbs is really easy - as well as frugal and you end up with much better quality crumbs than any you buy prepacked. Cut the bread into thickish slices and, when you are next using the oven for something else, put the sliced bread onto the lower rack and leave to dry out for 10 minutes or so. Then break the bread up into the bowl of a food processor and whizz to your desired crumb size.

Feel smug at fresh food that has saved you money and cut your waste. Followed by a great dinner. What could be more perfect?

And this week I wanted, I bought, I made

I have a hankering for crumbed cod and salad so that may well be Saturday night special this week -and it was wonderful. Perhaps roast pork had a sudden irrational urge to not have roast - feels like it's terribly repetitive and almost lazy so ended up having cheese on toast after lunch out on Sunday. Monday a curry for a change kind of, had kashmiri lamb burgers, cabbage and coconut, dry spiced beans and rice with this as the basis for lunches till Thursday, then pasta perhaps Tuesday pork and noodle soup instead, may get the pork and beans out this week for after French class Wednesday was invited to a food bloggers event at the Kitchen so that was my class and made four dishes to bring home so was starving when I got in and had veal saltimbocca that I had made earlier and it was just lovely, noodles Thursday so we had a selection of dishes from the Kitchen that cried out to be eaten, so we had lentil samosas with lime crême fraiche and the man had cod fillet topped with a herb crust and I had chicken stuffed with ham and cheese and courgettes sautéed with garlic and bacon and sauages Friday, with onions but in fact it is pasta with a sage and butter sauce.

The market seemed fairly busy though we were there by 9 - but then I have just read that Borough Market has 4.7 million visitors a year so I shall have to stop being surprised. It's good for the Market - but I do wish they'd all wait to come after 10. Dream on.

Went to Ginger Pig and bought lamb mince kashmiri spice balls, pork mince and pork chops both in the freezer - not really in response to hard times, but it won't hurt to get a bit of practice in! - £17.50

Then to Booths for potatoes still there but fine to use, watercress fabulous with fish, aubergine meant for curry but still in the fridge and still okay, beans spiced Monday and then in lunches, mandarins lunches and dried porcini - £6.60

At Furness I bought a lovely piece of cod fillet Saturday special and fabulous- £5.10

At Wild Beef there was no Lizzie but she's on holidays which she richly deserves so I bought eggs and sausages freezer from Richard - £5.70

Bought 3 peppers roasted, peeled and dressed in basil oil as a perfect accompaniment for fish for a pound from the pile it high bloke

And a jar of brinjal pickle from the Indian stall - £3 - a bargain as it is fabulous

Fresh pasta from Gastronomica in the freezer most of the week but now to be dinner Friday as I've had a hankering - £5.40

Was thinking of smoked salmon but they weren't there - perhaps the seas were to rough to be crossing the Irish channel

Neals Yard for yoghurt, milk and bread - £6.60

Flour Power for cottage loaf and a brownie - £3

So a total of £53.90 - good!

I also bought onions, fresh noodles, coriander, lemons, coconut milk powder, bok choy, thai basil, butter, more milk, and chocolate biscuits

Apart from peelings I threw nothing away this week - the leftover bread I mushed with water and fed to my worms, which have settled in very well in their little farm. They eat almost exclusively from Borough too! Lucky worms.

This time last year we were mostly eating porridge! But only on weekend mornings. The rest of the time it was soup, particularly bean and barley, one of my most particularly favourite things.

Ruby Chard and Mushroom Tagliatelle

Though we've had some lovely warm days recently autumn is definitely here. On the bus home last night the light wind was causing a flurry of leaves to fall like giant raindrops leaving golden splodges on Brixton Road and this morning at seven there was insufficient daylight. And it was drizzling. I guess the poor excuse we had for a summer this year is definitely over. Time to look forward to autumn.

It is a season of wonderful foods, more substantial than summers fripperies and often with wonderful colours to go with flavours that have developed over the last few months of warmth if not sunshine. At the market on Saturday Booths had great piles of pumpkins and squashes and apples and crinkly cabbages calling out 'eat me, eat me!' Metaphorically you understand. I bought some big flat field mushrooms with deep brown gills and fell in love with the flashness of the ruby chard - you don't have to be looking at it for long to know why it is called Beta Vulgaris. The stems positively glow jewel red offset with huge soft leaves the colour of a mossy pond. I did not resist.

So Tuesday's dinner had to be pasta, enriched with butter rather than cream, depth added to the flavour with a few dried porcini and their rehydrating bath. Perfect autumn food. The recipe is from a River Café recipe supplement from the Guardian a long time ago that I saved and found again.

Ruby Chard & Mushroom Tagliatelle

500g ruby (or other) chard

250g flat field mushrooms

2 cloves garlic

15g dried porcini

50g parmesan

120g unsalted butter

300g egg tagliatelle

Put a medium sized pan of salted water on to boil. Cut the stalks from the chard and slice into inch long pieces, roughly tear the leaves. Boil the stalks for five minutes then add the leaves and cook together for a few minutes till tender. Drain and cool, then chop roughly together.

Meanwhile, soak the dried porcini in 150ml hot water. Trim and finely slice the mushrooms. Peel and finely chop the garlic. Grate the Parmesan.

Drain the porcini - keeping the soaking liquid - and chop them roughly.

Heat a large pan of salted water to boiling. Then melt half the butter in a separate large thick bottomed pan and when it just starts to fizz add the fresh mushrooms and cook until lightly brown. Add the garlic, the porcini and 4 tablespoons of their soaking liquid. Season and cook together for a few minutes until the flavours combine and the liquid is reduced. Stir in the chard and the remaining butter.

Cook the tagliatelle in the boiling salted water until al dente. Drain, add to the chard and mushrooms, toss thoroughly and serve with the Parmesan.

What you end up with is a perfect autumn dish. Looks, smells, tastes - the lot.

Useless information department - in Australia chard is called spinach and spinach is called English spinach. I'm guessing if they have ruby chard they just call it Vulgar!